My greatest love, Dimitri, was my mate, and I had to find him! My father hurried after me and asked, “What is wrong, my dear?” I kept a close eye on him since I sensed that his motivations weren’t entirely good. I said, “This isn’t real,” my voice trembling with conviction as I shivered out of his icy clutches. “None of this is.” Panic flared in my mother’s eyes as she tried to pull me in. “What do you mean?” she asked, looking into my soul with an emotionless face. I mumbled, “Mom, I watched you die,” my voice choked with a mix of outrage and agony. I tell her and all the witches in the room who are watching, “I watched all of you die when I was only four. This can’t be really happening?” My mother bluntly said, “We are your family, Isabella,” and as she sought to bring me into her arms, I resisted. As the shattered fragments of my recollection solidified into an astonishing clarity, I screamed, my heart pounding, “No, there is an important part in my memory that I was missing….” “I
